Is There a Secret to Success?
At Inspired to Change we are ending this month on a high! We have just been chosen out of hundreds of applicants as finalists for the award of Happiest Team in the UK, and we couldn’t be prouder!
But we didn’t achieve this success by chance. Nobody ever achieves success by chance! This is why so many people fail their New Year’s Resolutions.
Did you know that when you set a New Year’s Resolution you only have an 8% chance of succeeding?
That’s pretty poor isn’t it? So as a team we’ve pulled together to help unpick this tricky problem and give you a new manual for creating success in your life throughout the whole year!
First let’s look at why New Year’s Resolutions have such a high fail rate.
Vague Goals
New Year resolutions tend to be a bit wishy washy in their language “I’ll lose weight and get fit this year” – what does that even mean? A goal should be specific as our brain needs specific, otherwise it tends to wander off. A specific goal is like map co-ordinates; the co-ordinates never change and no matter where we are we can still work towards them.
Open Deadlines
Add to that New Year resolutions are just a start date, with a vague notion of doing it ‘this year’. A goal is defined by having a deadline, giving a level of urgency and accountability to the clear destination we have set.
Stick vs Carrot
New Year Resolutions are often negative, ‘away from’ goals, “I don’t want to be this unfit this time next year”. Although the thinking may stem from a negative, the ultimate goal needs to come from a positive because ‘away from’ goals like this decrease in urgency as we get away from our pain point. When we start to feel a little bit better we often slow down and slacken off – this is why so many people end up setting the same recurring resolution year after year and never succeeding.
A Better Way
But there is a better way. At Inspired to Change we know all about how to harness the power of our brain to help drive us towards success. That’s why we find ourselves prouder than punch to be receiving an award we knew nothing about until just over a month ago.
Every year we set goals for our business, our version of ‘New Year Resolutions’, but unlike most New Year Resolutions we make our goals very specific and positive; we constantly check in on our progress and set new goals; every time we have a decision to make we check in to see if it will help us towards one of our goals. As our goals are so clear it’s easy for us to see opportunities that might help us achieve them. So when we were sent details of the Happiness Awards run by Laughology we could clearly see how it would help us towards a number of our goals including growing the number of Inspired to Change Associates across the UK – after all, who wouldn’t want to work with the Happiest Team in the UK?
A New Start Every Month
So don’t wait for New Year to set a vague goal that will leave you feeling useless and frustrated as you fail yet again to achieve it.
Why not see every month as an opportunity to set a new goal? What do you want to achieve by the end of November? What would you love to tell people you’ve done by the end of the year? Every month is a chance for a new start either on a new goal or a new push on an existing goal.
Setting lots of regular small goals in this way helps to get our brain on board with what we want to achieve, creates plenty of opportunity for the production of feel good hormones, like serotonin, that motivate us and keep us focused on our goals, and trains our brain to act more motivated every day of the year, not just for a few days in January. And the more smaller goals we have the more opportunity we have to celebrate our success which boosts our confidence and self-esteem and gives us even more motivation to work towards the next goal.
We can’t wait to celebrate our recent success at the awards ceremony on Friday, and we’re already feeling the results of the serotonin buzz we got from our win as we take on two new Associates who we’ll be introducing to you next month.
We’ve pulled together all our favourite brain science tips on goal setting and staying motivated in our Top Tips to Achieving Your Goals blog – check it out here.
If you’re finding it difficult to achieve your goals it may be time to contact your nearest Inspired to Change hypnotherapist to book your FREE initial consultation. Inspired to Change Hypnotherapists are based across the UK in Peterborough, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Devon and Kent.
Inspired to Change Hypnotherapists are all recognised by the National Council for Hypnotherapy, the UK’s leading not-for-profit hypnotherapy professional association.
To find out how you can train as a solution focused hypnotherapist click here for our hypnotherapy school information
If you feel your workplace could be doing more to promote good mental health visit Mental Health In The Workplace